small hands

Dear Clients and Colleagues:

Please stop asking me questions. I'm working on a brief and I don't need y'all blowing up my e-mail and voicemail.

Dear Rain:

Enough already. Rainiest March in history, we got it.

Dear Daughter,

You profoundly impressed me during your African Dance recital yesterday. I knew you were getting taller, but I didn't really get it until I saw you dancing among all the rest of the girls. You were so graceful and expressive, I almost burst with pride.

Dear Denzel,

I saw your movie last night. It was very good and I enjoyed your performance, especially the shots of your rear end. I have no idea what Jodie Foster was thinking about her role.

Dear Scout,

Happy Birthday.

Spring has sprung.

Even though it’s overcast and threatening to rain, I know it’s Spring, if for no other reason than the fact that I wiped down all the baseboards this weekend. We even Spring cleaned the gecko's tank.

The sun has been waking me up (at 6:20 this morning) and my son and I planted flowers in the front yard yesterday. It was a lot of fun being out in the dirt with my sweet guy, who is such a friend of the earthworm.

We went ice skating after Mass and grocery shopping, though I wanted to be out in the sunshine. The kids had a blast.

For dinner, I made stir fried pork loin, marinated in hoisin sauce, with green beans and carrots and peanuts, and steamed rice. I cooked with my girl and we talking about the Slow Food movement and stir frying techniques and all manner of things. She likened slow food to the opening sequence in Eat Drink Man Woman, where the master chef father is cooking the epic Sunday dinner for his daughters. She was as blown away by the scene as I was.

My son refused to eat the dinner, so we let him excuse himself and we sat and talked about her upcoming transition to fifth grade. She asked if I would let her take the school’s bus to school and I thought about it and said no, she couldn’t because she’s my only baby girl. I told her if I had twelve daughters I might let her, but I don’t.

Later, I gave my boy a bowl of chili, which he ate with great relish. We put together another Star Wars Lego concoction and he alternated between playing with it and his bear with the apron. I thought he would hate the apron, but he loves it.

It’s raining now. I hope I didn’t leave any tools out.

I'm a pro-choice Catholic and I love this cartoon:



Next time I'm trying to decide between plain and peanut M&Ms, Pine-Sol or Mr. Clean in the upstairs toilet, I should give old Bill a call. The phone numbers are, for the time being, his actual numbers.

"I'm not married" is perverse and challenging and hilarious. you know I love it.

Michelle is exactly right. Instead of giving a stranger personal, detailed information, I leave it up to him/her to determine:

A. She was never married.
B. She is divorced.
C. She is widowed.
D. She is a lesbian.

I like Sarah Silverman’s view that unless gay people can get married, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with it, and would rather just be “lovahs” with Jimmy Kimmel.

What does it matter what husbands do for a living?

It’s all about ranking/hierarchy. My husband is a [high paying/high status job] means one thing, my husband is a [not high paying/status] means something else to the person who asks. There are a world of assumptions that attach if you say “My husband is an investment banker”; assumptions about what your life is like, what your value is since that person chose to partner with you.

I’ve actually had strangers ask me why I got divorced. They’d be shocked if I yelled “Not your business” in response, quoting The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan.

Thank you for your sweet words, Monica, but I think the asker is trying to nail down some piece of information which fits into his/her belief system...you are this, this and that, so you must be married.

And when I say that I’m not, with no angst about the admission, it gives them something to think about in the adrupt silence that ensues.

* * *


The theme this month is making an apron for your doll or softie.

Since I just made a softie, I made him an apron. I got to use my cotton/linen fabric:



and do a bit of embroidery, using two strands of embroidery floss:



while watching ER (capuccino at lunch kept me hopping in the evening). I have a good deal of embroidery floss, because when I was in law school and for a couple of years afterward, I did cross stitch.

I got the embroidery pattern (second one down on the right) from Creative Embroidery by Joan Nicholson, which the lovely soulemama blogged about and inspired me to get.



I think it makes the apron look a bit Scandinavian.

* * *

Oh my heavens, this show is absolutely brilliant. I watched one episode (Martha's bathroom)last night and I'm hooked. The head of the "team" is Sarah and she has a death stare that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. They have impeccable taste. If you can, check it out.

Yesterday was an odd work day. I was working away from the office, but it was more like a field trip to Stressland. There are some things about this profession that I find very taxing, including the elitism.

Hours and hours in the presence of Braggy McMegabucks, wearing almost as much bling as Nelly...

Making pleasant, time filling conversation, during which a stranger asks me what my husband does for a living. I say I'm not married and since I've been talking about my kids, I wonder if they wonder if I've ever been married. I noticed that I like saying I'm not married better than saying I'm divorced.

Whew. It's nice to get back into the quiet of my office.

I made another bear last night, which I tried to make bigger. It seems that only its head is bigger. It's for my son, who likes my stuffed animals.



I saw my little guy this morning, volunteering in his class. I tried to be non-demonstrative in my affection, but he doesn't like it if I leave without a cuddle.

Since I was going to his class, rather than straight to work, I was able to work on my quilt this morning. The little break did me good. I am delighted to be back to quilting, to sewing cotton fabric, rather than stretchy velour.

I'm looking forward to germinating seeds for a flower garden this summer. I want masses of flowers.

Happy Vernal Equinox.

The weather this weekend was gorgeous. It's nice to have the sun for a couple of days. I worked in my garden yesterday after weeks of inattention. Lots of weeding, but the soil is very soft from all the rain, so the weeds came right out. [It's raining this morning.]

I read the Sunday newspapers outside in the sun and barbecued chicken for Sunday dinner.

I made this tomato pincushion from scraps, using the Martha Stewart Living article linked on my March 8, 2006 post.







MSL's are a bit more squashed down than mine. I'll work on that on the next one.

When working on such a big project as my quilt, I need to complete little things too.

I call this my Constant Gardener pouch, because I made it using this tutorial, watching the Constant Gardener. A magnificent film.

Other side:



Lining:



In the lovely spirit of simple sparrow's use what you have month it is made of fabric and quilt batting scraps and a zipper from my stash.

I also made this bear, my first, from a pair of pants my mother was tossing and leftover quilt batting.

Image courtesy of whip-up.

This message applies to me and extends (way) beyond a month. I have plenty of fabric to make quilts for a decade and don't need any more. That includes Denyse Schmidt's new fabric line, which is lovely, but not for me. I will sometimes get that feeling, like I did when Rowan came out with Martha Negley's dahlia and fruit fabrics, but I have enough.

Last night I made a (crinkly, imperfect) pincushion, from a whip-up tutorial.



I made the fabric button earlier in the day, after buying the $1.37 fabric button making kit and following the very simple instructions. I love fabric covered buttons.

This is one of my favorite quilts. It's called Sunlight on Flowers by Heather Waldron Tewell and she is a genius.



The weather has been working my nerves (lots of rain and clouds) and I'm ready for some sunlight on flowers.

Hi Sistah in Europe. Let's see if I can answer your questions satisfactorily.

Please tell me how and where you purchase your white fabric.

I purchase most of my white fabric from Jo Ann stores. The website does not give the name of the manufacturer. There is also a Berkeley store called Stonemountain and Daughter, where I recently purchased some 60" inch wide, 200 count, white cotton fabric for $4 per yard.

I don't know where you live--I assume in Europe--so I don't know what access you have to fabric stores.

I never purchase white fabric online, because I need to evaluate, in person, its whiteness and thickness. However, in a pinch, I would order an experimental yard of something from say, Hancocks of Paducah, and if, once I received it, I like it, I would order more.

The Jo-Ann site has customer comments, and one indicates that the fabric was too thin.

Do you purchase bolts of white?

I do not purchase a whole bolt. I usually purchase about 10 yards at a time.

Is it Kona?

No. I don't eschew Kona, I just buy whatever 100% cotton I can find which meets the thickness and whiteness test.

Is it from Hancock?

I have bought muslin from Hancock, but not very often. I like the selection and prices at Jo Ann better.

What is it called, in the pic it looks like sateen cotton.

Sateen is defined as: a cotton or polyester fabric with a shiny side intended to look like satin; a cotton fabric woven like satin with a glossy surface.

Muslin is defined as: a thin plain-weave cotton cloth; use: curtains, sheets, dresses; or lightweight cotton cloth in a plain weave.

I don't buy sateen. I buy bleached muslin, but it can't be too thin. And it's got to be 100% cotton.

I don't give the white fabric much thought, though I suppose I should buy enough of one kind to make a quilt which doesn't have variations in the white fabric.

I did, however, get obsessed with the fabric pictured above; for no good reason other than I love the quality of the blue. I couldn't find it anywhere, so I e-mailed a picture of the scraps I had to equilter and asked them if they could tell me the manufacturer. They e-mailed me right back (lovely people) and said it is Timeless Teasures Blue Lotus. I found some scraps in the UK on e-bay, but was outbid for them. *Good* A few days later I found two yards for sale on e-bay in the US and snapped them up.

Fabric can make you crazy, because its here today and gone tomorrow. Not so with bleached muslin.

A good, productive weekend. I didn't get to do everything I wanted, but I am not complaining.

I made a list of stuff I wanted to accomplish on Sunday morning and checked it this morning--only three things unchecked, out of ten. A list for a Sunday? Well, I didn't want to forget anything, like writing checks for bills or story time.

What eclipsed everything else was the 11th hour presentation of the need for a Russian skirt. My girl is doing an extensive unit on Fort Ross, which had, in the 19th century, been a Russian settlement. Her class is taking a trip there this week and must dress in costume.

My girl had the notion that we would go searching for one in a thrift shop. The thing about thrifting, as it is with shopping, is when you are looking for something specific, it is particularly elusive. So I vetoed that I idea and said we would make a skirt.

We stopped off after Mass (which was packed shoulder to shoulder) and donuts at my mother's house to check on her. I hoped she might have some elastic for the skirt's waistband and possible some lace. [My quilting has never required me to buy either.] She had such an enormous stash of lace and other trimmings, which she pushed us to take in its entirety.

We returned home, ate lunch, surfed the internet for Russian clothing, discussed design ideas, and then I started sewing, while watching Project Jay. [I totally understand why he would cry when Heidi Klum didn't wear his dress. I wanted to cry too.]



Despite much trial and error, ripping and resewing, my girl is pleased with the results, which is all that matters to me.



I thought she would want more embellishment, but she did not; probably because she is going to have to be very active on this outing, marching about as a sentry and such. The lace was fun to work with.

The quilting is going well so far. I accomplished some of it on Saturday, though not as much as I would like.



The fabric below is from Kitty-Craft and I am pleased that I was able to use it, as the fabric is not cheap as it is sold in quarter yards:



No gardening whatsoever, what with the rain and hail and freezing weather.

On Friday I went for my yearly mammogram, first thing in the morning (7:30AM). I felt very delicate and sensitive about it, but the technician was a wonderfully zaftig woman, not afraid of physical contact, and I felt hugged through the whole thing. I took the day off of work afterward, which was a good idea.

We had baked ziti for Sunday dinner, in anticipation of the Sopranos season premiere. Um...wow. I taped the east coast 6PM airing and then ran the tape over to my mother's house and told her to watch it right away.

Gwen: I am working on a post about sewing. Stay tuned.

I finished the piecing for the Crow's Foot quilt. It is 6 blocks by 7 blocks, with a 12 inch border on each side. That makes it 96" by 108".

I was really in the mood for red and this quilt satisfies it. No monkey mind at all on this one.

My plan is to quilt this one and two others which have been languishing for far too long, sitting around in my fabric stash. I must go tomorrow and buy an acre of batting to accomplish this. The quilts are all huge, so I will have to pace myself and do my carpal tunnel preventative exercises.

The March 2006 Martha Stewart Living is the Special Garden issue. These are generally light on content and repetitive, the latter in evidence this time with a 15 year retrospective on plants they've recommended before. [If you need further evidence of MSL's repetitiveness, you only need search for risotto recipes using Maitreya's excellent Marthadex. MSL staff are risotto missionaries, apparently, seeking to spread the Good News of Risotto far and wide.]

Anyway, there is an extra groovy craft project article, which I will employ as soon as I finish the last four blocks of my quilt:

The project is linked here. I wouldn't want to violate Martha's copyright.

Great textures of fabrics. Brilliant use of scraps.

A good weekend, on the whole. It rained and blew a lot.

Saturday, after the children went to their dad’s house, I went to my therapy appointment and then grocery shopping. Then I sewed and watched the first disc of Best of Youth. I felt tired and like I was coming down with a cold, so I went to bed early.

Sunday at Mass I felt off-center; I didn’t know the songs and one of the readers had some speech issues which made the reading unintelligible. I figured I would just have a very meditative experience of Mass when my son ran up to my pew, brought to Mass by his father. That livened things up considerably and improved my mood. He wanted to go home with me, so we departed together, while my girl got some much needed time away from her brother.

We returned home and mostly hung out. He wanted chili for lunch. I made the baked chicken from the Monet’s Table. It was different than any other way I’ve cooked chicken: sauteeing the onions and bacon in butter until brown, then removing them from the pan and browning the chicken whole in the pan. Then returning the onions and bacon to the pan with the chicken and adding a cup of white wine. I didn’t have white wine, so I used champagne which has been just sitting around, unopened, in the refrigerator. It bakes at 325 for 2 hours, then you add sliced mushrooms and let it bake for another 20 minutes. It is delicious, though my son was not in love with it.

Just in time for the Oscars, I also made apple dumplings with Pink Lady apples and puff pastry from this cookbook.



The problem with the recipe is that it leaves out the baking temperature, so I had to pull out this one:



to go with 400 degrees. The Pink Lady was a terrific choice. Next time I’ll probably go with 375 and a bit longer for the cooking time. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, as it called for putting apple preserves inside the apple. Instead, I used granulated sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, with a dollop of butter on top.



I ate the dumpling with vanilla ice cream and laughed more at this Oscars than I ever have before. The high point for me was when Phillip Seymour Hoffman praised his single mother.

After the Oscars, I cleaned up the kitchen and washed all the dishes.

I am gaining on the piecing of my quilt. I have 10 more blocks to get to 42. The piecing is going faster. I finished the Year of Magical Thinking.

Congratulate me, I survived two parent teacher conferences. Some interesting, identical observations in each one. I hate PTCs. I feel exposed and judged, despite reminding myself that it’s not about me and despite the teachers’ praise.

My little dude wanted to return to my house last night to check on his salamanders. I was happy to have him, though I had been late getting home because I went searching, unsuccessfully, for a copy of Marie Claire Idees. [I purchased a subscription, to save my time and gasoline.] He arrived home, glanced at the salamanders, and then climbed contentedly into my bed.

I am reading The Year of Magical Thinking after waiting and waiting for the library copy. Confronting loss [of a partner and child] is very scary but it’s essential reading. It makes me never want to say a cross or impatient word or deny my boy when he wants to be with me.

I’ve had some pain and creaking in my neck for about a month. Part of it is stress related. Part of it is age. I can’t decide what, if anything, to do about it. It’s not painful exactly, but I would like to explore any preventative measures to keep it from getting worse. I believe part of the solution is reconfiguring my sewing area.

The weather has been incredible; raining and blowing. The forecast calls for rain all weekend. I’m good with that. I want to sew and maybe finish the blocks of my quilt. Dare I dream of completely assembling the top?



This book is a wonderful supplement to Monet’s House. I intend to make the recipe for roast chicken this weekend.